[Vision2020] Global Warming: The issue for real Christians, not phony egomaniacs.

[Art Deco]

The poor will pay for global warming
  a.. 11 November 2006 
  b.. From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. 
Tackling climate change is about more than science or economic policy.  It is a human rights issue.
  a.. Fred Pearce, Nairobi
 
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IT'S time for the debate on global climate change to move on. The scientific evidence and economic impact of global warming are only the beginning of the story. Now we need to ensure the measures we take to deal with climate change are equitable and just.
That is a key message being pushed by hundreds of delegates and academics at the 11-day international meeting on climate change which opened this week in Nairobi, Kenya - the first time sub-Saharan Africa has hosted such a conference. Climate change, they argue, should be seen as a human rights issue.

Climate change already kills thousands of people a year, and will leave millions more starving or displaced as it devastates economies around the world. Yet the rich nations most responsible for global warming are not the ones most vulnerable to its effects, and are promoting self-serving and "ethically indefensible" strategies to tackle the problem, delegates are saying.

Africa is the continent least responsible for climate change, but the one that is most vulnerable to it. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is hosting the meeting, is the lead author of a report circulating in Nairobi which suggests that up to 30 per cent of Africa's coastal infrastructure could be inundated as sea levels rise. Especially vulnerable are parts of Senegal, Gambia, Egypt, Cameroon and Nigeria, while towns and cities under threat include Cape Town in South Africa, Maputo in Mozambique and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Away from the coasts, meanwhile, wetlands such as the Okavango delta in Botswana and the Sudd swamp on the Nile in Sudan could dry out.

Yet when it comes to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases after the UNFCCC's Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, the rich nations still seem to be ignoring the interests of the poor. While European countries, including the UK, will put forward a proposal to the meeting that requires industrial nations to cut emissions by 30 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, there are also calls for developing nations and fast-industrialising countries such as China to follow suit. That is "ethically indefensible" says Don Brown, an environmental lawyer and former UN Environment Programme official now at the Rock Ethics Institute at Pennsylvania State University.

On Wednesday, Brown along with authors from a dozen institutions in the US, UK and Brazil published a report on the ethical dimension of climate change. "Climate change kills tens of thousands of people a year, and threatens the survival of whole nations. Yet we haven't had a public discussion about the ethics of climate change," Brown says. "People have the right not to be harmed by others without their consent."

The report argues that people harmed by the effects of global warming have a right to compensation, that human rights should come before economics in deciding how to respond to climate change, and that claims of continuing scientific uncertainty about the likely extent of climate change cannot justify postponing action. "In law, wilful ignorance cannot be used as justification for continuing harmful behaviour", Brown says.

Brown and his colleagues say that future agreements on global climate should take these principles into account. "Many international treaties are based on ethical foundations, whether on human rights or international environmental problems. And the climate change convention itself says specifically that action should be based on equity," he told New Scientist.

One of the ideas Brown and his colleagues put forward is that every individual should have equal rights of access to the atmosphere, and that this should be the basis for future emissions targets. This implies adopting some version of the "contraction and convergence" formula, under which national emissions targets will eventually converge on a single per-capita entitlement.

Rich nations are also coming under pressure to reach agreement on activating a long-promised though modest "adaptation fund" to help poor and vulnerable nations prepare themselves for the effects of climate change. The $100 million fund was set up nine years ago as part of the Kyoto agreement. It could be used to protect coastlines, finance the development and use of drought-resistant crops, or help safeguard forest and upland soils that play a critical role in catching rain and feeding rivers. Yet countries are still arguing over who will decide how the money is spent. "Activating the adaptation agenda is critical," de Boer says.

Some economists argue that trying to be fair to poorer and rapidly developing countries may impede efforts to minimise climate change, as these countries are generally far less "carbon-efficient" than richer ones. For example, China burns four times as much carbon as the US for every dollar of GDP, and eight times as much as the European Union. However, countries tend to become more energy-efficient as they develop, so fast-tracking first-world green technologies into developing economies could help achieve both economic and climate goals.

The US has yet to make a clear statement on its attitude. "We take our obligations seriously" was the response by Harlan Watson, head of the US delegation in Nairobi, when questioned on the need for an equitable approach to climate change policy.

The convention president, Kenya's environment minister Kivutha Kibwana, told delegates that without an equitable approach to tackling climate change, poor nations will be forced to use scarce funds to deal with emergencies such as healthcare crises, water shortages or food shortages. "Climate change threatens the development goals for billions of the world's poorest," he says.

That view was echoed by Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme. "Equity is the big issue here. This problem was not caused by Africa, but it has to cope with the results. We need international solidarity to help them," he says. Brown goes further. In his eyes, current global policies on climate change "violate the most basic human rights".

The rise and rise of western emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions rose in industrial countries in 2004, according to data released in Nairobi. Though still 3 per cent below 1990 levels, the baseline year for the Kyoto protocol signed by most industrial nations, emissions have now been rising slowly for four years - posing a threat to achieving the 5 per cent overall reduction target set by the protocol.

The main reason for the recent increase is a surge in emissions in Russia. These crashed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but rose by 11 per cent in the five years to 2004 - though they are still 30 per cent down on 1990 (see Chart). Other culprits include Spain, whose emissions are now 49 per cent above 1990 levels, and Canada, whose emissions are 27 per cent up compared to a Kyoto target of a 6 per cent reduction.

Canada's environment commissioner last month warned the government that the country was in breach of its legal obligations under the protocol by failing to draw up plans to meet the target. Emissions from the US and Australia, which both opted out of the Kyoto protocol, are up 16 and 25 per cent respectively.

One bright spot is that countries are breaking the link between economic growth and rising emissions. In 2004 industrial nations were producing 28 per cent more economic output from every tonne of carbon emitted than they did in 1990.

After kyoto
Industrialists and financiers are calling for an early agreement on emissions targets after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. They are concerned over critical investment decisions on new power stations and other industrial infrastructure, which depend on how tough the targets are. "There is no way people will commit to invest with a scheme that runs out in 2012," says Richard Burrett, sustainable development director of the Netherlands-based bank ABN AMRO.

Concern is so great that a European Union advisory group dominated by industry and energy companies such as BP last month called for the EU to set its own unilateral targets ahead of any post-2012 international agreement. Last week UK prime minister Tony Blair added his voice with a call for the G8 group of industrialised nations to agree post-Kyoto targets by 2008, before George Bush steps down as US president. The UN is likely to take much longer to agree targets for all its members, and the Nairobi meeting is unlikely to even set a deadline for a deal.

>From issue 2577 of New Scientist magazine, 11 November 2006, page 8-9
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